After Darla Brasier, a resident of Orange,
read my June 15 Register Accent
Section column (Getting over getting dumped
takes time), she wrote, "When I read your column,
a weight was lifted from my shoulders and now
I truly feel I can move on from being dumped
by someone I have been seeing for the last 10 years."

Darla explained: "My story is very similar to
the stories in the column except for the
added twist that I got breast cancer last year."
Before her surgery, Darla offered her boyfriend
a chance to leave.

Instead, he moved in with her and
stayed through her chemotherapy,
stem cell transplant, and radiation treatments.

"After I spent 18 days at the City of Hope, I felt
that something had changed with him. It took until
January for me to lose my temper, as to why he
was not talking to me, even though we were living
in the same house," Darla said.

She asked if he was seeing someone else.
He said no. He told her, however, that he
would be moving out, that he loved her, but
wasn't "in love" with her.

"Things got better for awhile," Darla
said, "and then, he started acting weird
again. He kept getting pages and leaving the house to
make phone calls. He stayed out late and
would never invite me to go with him.
After he used my cell phone, I called
the number to see who he called. A
woman answered, who turned out to be
29 and married." Darla's ex-boyfriend
is over 50, and a grandfather of three.

According to Darla, he moved out in April,
"because he couldn't' take me anymore, as it
was a constant fight, after I found out more
from him and everyone else about their
relationship."

Darla said her boyfriend has hurt her more
than the cancer did. She said he told her the
reason he left was he thought she was going
to die and he needed to let off steam.

"What he did for me last year when I was
sick was whitewashed by what he did to me
this year. Why wait until I was better to dump me?"

Darla says it's taken awhile but she feels
she's better off without him: "I'm a strong person;
this is making me stronger. The important thing is my health,
I know I will survive. Life will improve because I'm
looking and feeling better than ever."

And yet she wonders, "If only he'd had
the guts to talk to me. Yeah, it still would have
hurt like hell, but why destroy everything we
had together?"

Darla mustered some humor and hope when
she asked: "Where are the single men?"

Illnesses are hard on relationships. Did Darla's
boyfriend leave because she got sick, or was the
relationship on insecure footing before her illness?